It is 8 weeks until I leave for my round the world trip and it is something that I have been thinking about too. At the moment I am doing a lot of research on the internet and jotting down hostels, hotels, places to eat, sights etc and kind of making my own little compact travel guide! I am also thinking of buying a couple of the Lonely Planet shoestring guides (USA/Canada and OZ/NZ) as I find these very helpful, to the point and useful as we are travelling on a strict budget. I don't know how long you are going for and what order you are visiting places but you will have the chance to pick up new books on the way. I travelled round Europe a couple of summers ago and often swapped guides with others so I had information for my next destination but at the same time keeping the weight of my backpack down!!

its a good idea to do what rach has done in compiling your own little guide before you go and im doing the same.a friend of mine has stayed in many places around the world and hes found like a book share area in places.basically what people do is after they've read a book they simply leave it there and swop it for another they like and off you go.it costs nothing and in theory your not losing out because you still have another book.im sure alot of them would be travel books.

Lonely planet travelguides are for sale all over the world (at least in the better bookstores). So when going to a new country buy a new one or exchange guides with other travellers. Its better not to bring a library with you

Yeah, Ive kinda compiled my own round the world guide!Ive been accumulating several Lonely planets in preparation for my round the world trip over the past few months and its only now ive come to start getting all my stuff together that ive realised how ridiculous Im being, Ive got 8 for this trip, one of which is that big fat heavy Japan one alongside the very heavy south east asia on a shoestring, Its so not practical!I spent a day at the library perched next to the photocopier just copying all the bits i knew i wanted!Ive been reading up for months so i have a good idea of exactly what i want to do and which areas im going to be heading to!So now ive got a little book with all the useful maps and tips i need, and its a lot lighter!!!!

Hi;I put all my research info onto my pc then zipped it with winrar then emailed it to myself. So anytime I'm in an internet cafe I just unzip it if I want. I also saved within it a file of bookmarks from my search engine thus all the websites or pages that I'm interested are there as links which will open directly you click on them.

Yeah, Ive kinda compiled my own round the world guide!Ive been accumulating several Lonely planets in preparation for my round the world trip over the past few months and its only now ive come to start getting all my stuff together that ive realised how ridiculous Im being, Ive got 8 for this trip, one of which is that big fat heavy Japan one alongside the very heavy south east asia on a shoestring, Its so not practical!I spent a day at the library perched next to the photocopier just copying all the bits i knew i wanted!Ive been reading up for months so i have a good idea of exactly what i want to do and which areas im going to be heading to!So now ive got a little book with all the useful maps and tips i need, and its a lot lighter!!!!

Sounds like you have the same guides as me lol. I had no idea the rough guide japan book was going to be so big! still going to take it though :D